What's in a Name
by Ivanolix
Summary: It's a Swan-Mills family dinner and everything's going great until Henry asks about his middle name. Swan Queen if you squint, mentions Stable Queen. Pre-Season 2 AU setting.


"So yeah, as much as I **have** been a criminal in my past," Emma says, reaching all the way across the dining room table for another warm roll and ignoring Regina's lip twitch about it. "Most of the times I had to deal with law enforcement, I hadn't even done anything wrong. People just thought I was stealing someone's identity because I couldn't name my middle initial **or** my mother's birth name. Which isn't illegal but yeah, suspicious I guess. They don't have either of those in the Enchanted Forest, I figure, and no one helped out once I got found here."

"Naming customs in this land are quite strange, yes," Regina says. "Thankfully the curse ironed out most of the details for Storybrooke's inhabitants."

Henry looks intrigued as he chews on a drumstick of Regina's famous lemon-pepper chicken. "Hey, I don't even know my middle name. Do I have one, mom? Do you?"

Simple questions like that aren't supposed to make Regina freeze like a deer caught in the headlights. "Yes, you do," she answers after a second, but too quickly. "It's Daniel. Henry Daniel Mills."

Emma nods. "Nice flow. Better than what I would have picked. You lucked out, kid."

Henry seems not to have noticed the way Regina hastily folds her napkin, not meeting either one of her dinner partners in the eye.

He asks another question, curious as ever. "I know that I'm named after my grandpa Henry, but what about Daniel? Is he like my great-grandpa or something?"

"No," Regina says shortly, pressing her lips together until they look like a thin stripe of blood across her face. "I would never have cursed you with a middle name like Xavier or Geoffrey. Daniel isn't…a family name."

Emma has stopped paying attention the conversation, focusing instead on getting herself another serving of dinner. "This chicken is amazing, Regina."

Henry frowns for a few seconds, poking his green beans around the plate. "I don't remember anyone named Daniel from the storybook. Who was he?"

"That wasn't Graham's name over there, was it?" Emma asks, speaking before she looks up and can notice Regina's expression.

Regina drops her fork and knife with a clatter onto her plate. "Daniel isn't in the storybook. Now if you'll excuse me, I've lost my appetite." She sweeps away, nearly tripping over the step out of the dining room, and her heels click-clack up the stairs at a pace that sounds just short of frantic_._

Emma looks at Henry and he looks back, both of them with the sort of expression that one gets after stepping on a landmine. Emma bites down a half dozen words that Henry really shouldn't be hearing from his mother.

"Did we do something wrong?" Henry asks in a whisper.

"I don't know, but I think we need to find out and your mom isn't going to bring it up." Emma swallows hard.

"There isn't anyone named Daniel in the storybook, I'm sure of it." Henry chews on the inside of his lip, something he must have inherited from Emma. "Maybe we don't want to know…"

Out of all the stories she's heard about Regina, some from Regina's very own lips, Emma hasn't heard one that made Regina run away. Bristle, yes. Roll her eyes, yes. Stand still and take abuse as if she deserved it, yes. Regina doesn't break, she gets defensive.

Except once, and that had been a landmine Emma stepped in not too long ago. She's not sure Regina quite forgave it, since Emma figured out her mistake too late for the apology to ever sound truly sincere. She really, _really_ doesn't want this Daniel faux-pas to be another Cora incident between them. Not when they're actually having civil dinners together and Henry isn't angry and fearful all the time.

Emma lets out a long breath. "If we're going to make this whole family thing work, Henry, we can't just act like things are okay when they're not. I don't know much about family but I know that. And I can't go talk to your mom when I don't even know what went wrong. We have to know **something**. Whatever it is, though, it's in the past. We all have pasts we're trying to move beyond, Henry. Okay?"

Henry nods, and if he's a little cautious it's fine, because moral relativity and forgiveness are hard for adults—let alone 11 year olds.

It might be stepping over a boundary or two, but Emma pulls out her phone and texts Snow: _D__o you have a second? I have a question about the Enchanted Forest._

The woman immediately calls instead of replying to the text. Emma answers in a low voice, "Hey, hi. So this is really awkward but Henry's middle name is Daniel, and we were talking about it and…stuff happened. Regina left. Do you have any idea—mom? Mom?"

On the other end of the line, something glass appears to have fallen and broken. Snow's voice comes through shaky, and not because of poor reception. _"This isn't a conversation we can have over the phone. I don't even think you can **talk** to me about this. I'm sorry, Emma." _There's a click and nothing more.

Henry looks to her for an answer.

"She hung up on me." Emma rubs the bridge of her nose, a habit she picked up when she wore glasses, reconsidering. Whatever she was expecting, it wasn't that. "Maybe this isn't any of our business. Maybe we're going to have to be a family with secrets."

"No, we're not."

Henry and Emma look up, startled, to see Regina in the dining room doorway again. There's a weary determination in her eyes, even if her shoulders are slightly slumped. One of her hands is clutched as if around a small object.

"I swear, Regina, we're sorry, we didn't mean to invade on your privacy or anything," Emma insists.

"I didn't mean to freak you out, mom," Henry adds, and looks like he means it.

"This wasn't a conversation I ever expected to have." Regina takes her seat again, stiffly, her smile not quite displacing the sadness from her features. "Not with you two, at least. But I don't want you having the wrong impression."

"We don't have any impression, Regina, it's fine." Emma waves a hand, as if she can wipe away the past 10 minutes. She knows too well what it's like to keep pain locked up inside, and what it's like to have people pick at the lock before you're ready.

Regina raises her hand, though, to stop her. She takes a deep breath and shuts her eyes for a second.

Henry looks to Emma, unsure, but then turns his gaze back to Regina and waits. As he has so many times in the past few weeks, he looks like he wants an explanation. Regina's not the easiest person to love or forgive, but she's his mother and people always **want** to love their mother. In his case, both of them. Even Emma understands that now.

And love, though it's more a choice than a feeling sometimes, does require understanding.

Maybe Regina really has forgiven them—well, mostly Emma—for stumbling over the whole Cora issue last month, since this time she doesn't even shut them out. She opens her eyes and lets out a deep breath. "I want Henry to know who Daniel was. Why he has his name. Those sort of people shouldn't ever be forgotten." Her glance to Emma is as disarming as Regina ever gets. "You might as well know too."

Then Regina hands a small brass ring to Henry. "This is the only thing I have of Daniel. It may be the only thing left in the world—any world—that was his."

Henry cocks his head to one side. "What is it?"

"It's a ring from my saddle." Regina smiles with visible effort. "It was the only thing he could afford to give me."

Somehow Emma knows, in spite of Snow's distress, that this isn't going to be a story of the Evil Queen, nor even of the Mayor Mills she's trying to be these days. The woman sitting before them, voice just barely unsteady and hands tightly clasped on the edge of the table, is only Regina.

By the end of the story, Henry looks as devastated as his mother, but Emma can only look at her and know that she was right. Some people shouldn't ever be forgotten, even after they're gone forever. Daniel the stable boy is one. Regina the young girl who loved riding horses is another.


End file.
